The Air Bonsai makes living plants levitate

It's magic! Or magnets

It’s said that taking care of a bonsai tree is a time consuming but rewarding experience; they’re plants that require care and constant monitoring. Well, that constant need for your attention might be easier to accommodate with the Air Bonsai, since we’re pretty sure it’d be hard to tear your eyes away from a floating tree.

Rather than magic as I initially assumed, the Air Bonsai works by magnetic suspension, the same tech used in this floating speaker we loved at CES. When you buy a kit, you’ll receive a base which contains a built in magnet powered by an AC adapter and a small ball of moss the creators are calling a “little star.” Because of import and export restrictions, the Air Bonsai won’t actually come with a living plant; instead, this little star, which contains a magnet of its own, will be where you insert a plant of your choosing (within a reasonable limit, mind, I imagine a moss ball that’s 6 centimetres in diameter would struggle to hold that Floridian orange tree you’ve always wanted).

All you have to do after setting up is switch on the energy base to make the magnets push against each other and watch your plant levitate 2 centimetres above the base in wonder. And then remember to take care of it with frequent watering – it might look like it runs on magic but it doesn’t.

The Air Bonsai is live on Kickstarter just now, and they’ve already smashed their $80,000 goal, sitting at $187,292 at time of writing with 35 days left on their campaign. You can still become a backer and get your own little star, though, with a $200 (around £140) pledge getting you a ‘basic kit’ containing an energy base, a little star, and an AC adaptor with an estimated delivery date of August 2016.

Aside from making me want to update the idiom “float your boat” to “float your bonsai”, the Air Bonsai brings tech and nature together in a neat little floating package, and that’s pretty damn cool.